Adequate ground work has been done to ensure that the six new regions – Oti, Bono East, Ahafo, Western North, Savannah and North East get off to a smooth start, says Daniel Kwaku Botwe, Minister of Regional reorganisation and Development.

He said the ministry had been collaborating with the Civil Service to make sure they are ready to work as soon as the President issues a Constitutional Instrument to give effect to the results of the referenda.

He was speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Accra.

Mr Botwe said the budgetary allocation of GH¢20 million, to each of the new regions as seed money, would be used for basic infrastructure – functioning administrative office, staff recruitment and other elemental requirements.

He added that they were going to work closely with the relevant state institutions to make certain that the seed capital was judiciously utilised.

The minister shrugged off the argument by some critics that the creation of the regions would not solve the country’s development deficit, labeling it as “unnecessary.”

He said Ghana’s present and previous constitutions allowed the creation, altering and merging of regions.

”People asked for creation of new regions and we have followed constitutional processes by Article 52, and we have done it.

“So anyone’s view on it is neither here nor there and I do not think we are wiser than people who wanted it and expressed their votes massively for it and who are backed by the Constitution.”

The minister said the framers of the constitution had no doubt in their minds that there would come a time when there was going to be the need for creation, merger or altering of regions and having accepted that as part of the country’s basic law, then it should be respected

The people in those areas on Thursday, December 27, 2018, voted overwhelming to say “yes” in a referendum held to decide the creation of new regions for them.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo set up a Commission of Enquiry, headed by Justice S.A. Brobbey, to collate views and to make recommendations for carving out the new regions following petitions, he received from individuals across the country.

The Commission after nationwide consultations with the major stakeholders’ recommended the establishment of the six regions in its report to the President.

Western North, to be created out of the Western Region, Bono East and Ahafo, out of Brong-Ahafo, Savannah and North East (Northern) and Oti (Volta).

Mr Botwe, reacted to the new administrative map showing 16 regions that has gone viral on social media and said although the ministry asked the Statistical Service to produce a new map for the country, the government was yet to commission it.

A new administrative map, he said, would be outdoored in due course and would take into consideration the locations and boundaries of the districts and regions proposed in the petitions sent to the President.